We look at the relationship between a congressional district's black and Hispanic population proportion and the likelihood of election of black or Hispanic candidates. We show that black and Hispanic gains appear to be due to an increase in the number of districts with substantial minority population, rather than to any change in the willingness of nonminority voters to support minority candidates. In contrast to earlier work we focus on the importance of the combined minority (black plus Hispanic) population as a determinant of minority electoral success.
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